


Siege Harder

by new_kate



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: 15 years later, Canon-Typical Violence, College of Enchanters, Die Hard References, Fluff, Gift Fic, Hawke is still a Guard Captain's worst nightmare, M/M, Old Married Couple, Once a Champion always a Champion, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 16:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13127130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/new_kate/pseuds/new_kate
Summary: The College of Enchanters is captured and the people celebrating Satinalia there are taken hostage. Hawke must rescue the love of his life.Gif fic fornoirearrowshootwho wanted a Dragon Age 2 Die Hard story. Merry Satinalia everyone!





	Siege Harder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NoireArrows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoireArrows/gifts).



> Written for [teamblueandangry](teamblueandangry.tumblr.com) Let it Glow event.

During Satinalia week the College of Enchanters was always almost empty. Most students and staff went home, to celebrate with their families or catch up with their friends. The only children left were the ones who didn’t have a home to go back to: orphans, or those who’d been disowned by their parents when their magic came in. That happened rarely now, mostly in remote and fervently devout areas of Ferelden and Anderfels. Every year one teacher stayed in the College with them, helped them put together their daily meals and a little holiday feast, and made sure the little ones weren’t scared to sleep in their emptied dorms.

This year it was Anders’ turn. Hawke grumbled, of course, but he understood. They lived in town, a short walk from the College, they spent every night together. He would be fine alone for just a week. He could use the opportunity to spend more time with Bethany’s brood, remind them he was definitely their best and most beloved uncle, no matter how hard Uncle Varric tried to buy their allegiance with thrilling stories and lavish presents or how allegedly cool and handsome Uncle Fenris was.

Still, Hawke could visit his husband and bring him Satinalia treats. That wasn’t clingy or lovesick, that was just good manners.

He bought a few things at the market: some sugared plums and roasted nuts, some toys for the little magelings. He walked to the College Square, whistling a festive tune, and then his hands went numb and all the lovingly wrapped parcels spilt into frozen mud.

There was a templar on the main balcony. He was at the same spot where Dean Fiona would stand at the start of each term, to address the new intake of students and their families. Seeing the shiny helmet there instead of her smiling face felt like the worst kind of nightmare.

“Magic must be leashed!” the man yelled. “Magic must serve us! We must cleanse this place!”

There were others, more helmets bobbing in the doorway behind him. The great doors, the main entrance to the College, had always been flung wide open in daytime despite the drafts it caused in the lobby in winter. The mages wanted to have that symbol: the College was free, open to the world. Now the doors were shut. There were a couple of city guards pushing and pulling at them, but by the way the doors didn’t budge at all they seemed to be barred from the inside.

A crowd of townspeople gathered under the balcony, exchanging worried words. Two full squads of city guards were there, shuffling in place, probably awaiting orders.

“What’s going on?” Hawke asked the nearest one.

“Templars,” the woman said. “Templars came from Maker knows where. Took the College, shut the doors, said they’d kill the kids if we try to siege. How many kids are there?”

“About two dozen,” Hawke muttered and stepped closer to the building.

“Anders!” he yelled through his cupped hands. “Anders! Anders!”

The templar on the balcony stopped the speech and probably glared at him - not that Hawke could tell through the helmet.

“Anders!” he kept going. “Anders!”

Two floors above the balcony a window opened and a dear, beloved face peeked out, and Hawke nearly whimpered in relief.

“Hello, love!” Anders yelled, smiling, a gave him a wave. “We’re all fine, we locked ourselves in the library! The kids are being really brave! I’m just trying to figure out how…”

“No!” Hawke screamed. “Stay put, babe! Don’t do anything! I got you, you just stay safe!”

More templars popped out onto the balcony and craned their heads up to look at him. Hawke tensed, expecting them to hit Anders with a smite, but they made no attempt to. He was probably out of range.

“You don’t have to!” Anders screamed, smiling wider. “It’s fine, really!”

“No! Look after the kids, just be safe!” Hawke answered, and then, in front of half the town and all those mystery templars, blushing like a girl, he yelled on top of his lungs: “I love you!”

“I love you too!” Anders replied, leaning out of the window more, as if he wanted to leap into Hawke’s arms - and how wonderful would that be, if Hawke could really catch him like that and whisk him away from danger.

“Don’t you dare!” the templar roared. “Don’t anyone fucking dare get in here! You two, get away from the doors! If the city values these children’s lives, nobody will interfere with our work! We need four covered carts drawn by good horses in front of these doors by noon. We will take the children to a safe location and check them for possessions. We will release everyone who’s clean…”

Hawke dramatically flipped the templar off and ran into an alley leading away from the College. He needed some supplies, but mostly he needed to disguise his approach. They wouldn’t know what would hit them.

Half an hour later, armed and extremely dangerous, the former Champion of Kirkwall sleekly penetrated the templars’ defences through the laundry room window. 

He nearly got stuck in there. He spent a few horrifying, humiliating moments wriggling in the narrow frame, frantically trying to suck his stomach in. He should have expected this, really - he’d barely managed to squeeze into his old armour. Quite a few belts had to be left unfastened, which, in his opinion, looked dashing and stylish.

Eventually he struggled through, softly landed on the tiled floor and tiptoed toward the main entrance.

There were two templars by the barred doors. They were busy ripping coat hangers out of the cloak room. Some other broken furniture were already piled in front of the door to reinforce it in case of a siege. Hawke cut them both down before they could reach for their swords. He moved the barricade, unbarred the doors and lingered there, considering his next move.

He could open the doors and let the city guard in. But that would alert the rest of the templars right away, and any chance of subtlety would be lost with a throng of flat-footed guards bumbling around the place. It wouldn’t matter if Anders and the children were safe in the library, but if the templars would manage to capture them…

No. He’d handle this on his own.

Hawke considered the layout of the place, the routes to the library and best possible spots for traps and ambushes, and began working his way up.

The next two templars he came across were at the doors of the College vault, trying to tamper with the locks. Hawke was going to sneak closer to watch and listen and figure out what they were up to, but, as it turned out, the last fifteen years of happy, sedate married life took their toll not just on his waist circumference. His steps were a lot heavier now. The templars heard him, wheeled around and drew their swords, and he had to kill them both before he could find an opening to secure and interrogate at least one.

Hawke took his boots off after that and proceeded soundlessly. The next templar he found was in the Dean’s office, swigging her prized Orlesian brandy straight from the bottle and rummaging through her desk.

“Hello,” said Hawke, stepping up to him from behind, and put the point of his dagger to the man’s inner thigh through his skirt. “Nice and easy now, if that goes through your femoral artery--”

The templar screamed, twisted around, carelessly sliced himself on the knife and smashed his bottle over Hawke’s head. Hawke staggered backwards, a little dazed, and cut his right heel open on a bottle shard. The templar reached for his sword, and managed to half-draw it before collapsing in the pool of his own blood, his skirts turning redder.

There were clanging footsteps in the corridor: several templars were running here, alerted by the scream. Hawke slipped outside, wrapped his neck scarf over his foot to stop smearing bloody prints over the floor, dashed around the corner, curled in the empty dumbwaiter shaft and closed the hatch behind himself.

If they found him here, he’d have no choice but to kill them. But what he really needed was intelligence on their numbers and intentions.

“Dead,” said one of the templars once they reached the Dean’s office. “Go check on the others downstairs.”

Someone clanged past Hawke’s hideout and soon announced the discovery of the other bodies.

“I bet it’s that fat old man with the stupid beard,” said someone else and Hawke tried to memorise the voice to be sure to kill that one with extreme prejudice. He was not fat, and only forty seven, and his beard was gorgeous. Anders adored it.

“Look, these tracks, that must be his blood. He’s wounded. He won’t be trouble much longer.”

“Still, we better make sure…”

They moved away, and he couldn’t hear them anymore. But it stood to reason that they would search this floor and guard the staircases. Hawke climbed up the shaft, fumbling and slipping in the darkness, as far as it would take him. It didn’t go all the way to the library floor, but it made a decent shortcut, anyway.

This level of the College was mostly classrooms, where the students could practice their spells without endangering priceless books in the library. There were no signs of the templars here so far. Hawke curled on a chair by a window in an empty classroom to pick glass out of his foot, rest his tired muscles and have a little think.

Something had been bothering him about these templars since he saw and heard the first one, out there on the balcony, and only now he managed to put his finger on it. It’s been fifteen years since the Circles had been abolished and the templar order effectively disbanded. Hawke had been thirty two back then, but of course plenty of templars had to be as young as nineteen. Still, even those would be in their mid-thirties by now. But all the templars he’d come across had seemed younger. Suddenly he regretted not taking their helmets off to make sure. Where had they been hiding all that time? Where did they get their lyrium from, come to think of it?

There was a soft sound outside, and Hawke drew his daggers and hopped there on his good foot to take a look.

There was a boy of about eighteen, in College apprentice robes, huddled under a desk in one of the empty classrooms. He saw Hawke loom in a doorway and flung his arms out, as if about to cast an offencive spell.

“It’s all right,” Hawke said. “I won’t hurt you. What’s going on here?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “I got separated from the others, I think they hid. The templars are going to kill us, aren’t they? I’m so scared!”

“We’ll be fine. I can use a little help, though. What’s your name?”

“Jean…”

“I’m Garrett. What schools do you specialise in?”

“I’m… not very good,” the boy said meekly. “Can’t really control what happens, it just goes wild. In the olden times I’d be Tranquil by now.”

“No worries, we all learn at our own pace. My nephew iced himself to the floor just the other week, shit happens. He’s five, though, but I’m sure you’ll both get it when it’s time. Come on, we better get this over with. Do you know how many templars are there?”

“Lots. Maybe thirty. Shouldn’t we just wait here? What can we do against so many, we’ll both die!”

“We won’t,” Hawke said soothingly. He led Jean into another classroom and shut the door behind them. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“The stairs are that way…” Jean gestured behind them.

“Sure, but they must expect me to come up there. I know a secret passage, it’s over here. We’ll flank them and pick them out one by one.”

There was no secret passage, of course. They were almost up to the blind wall that didn’t connect with the library floor in any way when Jean fell back a little, drew a dagger from his sleeve and aimed a confident stab between Hawke’s ribs.

Hawke caught his hand mid-swing and broke his wrist with one vicious twist. Jean wailed in pain and fell to his knees, and Hawke perched himself on a desk and disapprovingly shook his head.

“Backstabbing an old rogue? Really, did you think that would work? And, just so you know, these robes are tailored for every apprentice, and yours don’t fit. Come on now, how many of you really are there?”

“Help!” Jean yelled. “Attack, now!”

“The rooms here are soundproof,” Hawke said. “The kids cast tempests here all day every day, the walls and the doors are very thick. Answer the question.”

Jean spat out a string of curses, cradling his broken wrist to his chest. Now that he didn’t keep up a carefully gormless wide-eyed expression he didn’t look as young, but still seemed barely in his twenties.

“All right, let me introduce myself properly,” Hawke said. “I’m Garrett Hawke, the husband of the man you have trapped up there. I used to be pretty famous when I was the Champion of Kirkwall. And afterwards for a bit. If you know me from The Tale of the Champion, you don’t really know me. Varric, bless his britches, left out a lot of ugly stuff. Like the agony I can inflict on you with or without my knives, while keeping you alive. Please don’t make me do that. How many of you are there?”

“There was ten of us before you showed up,” Jean gritted out. “You killed my best friend, you fuck!”

“Oh, I went through half of you already? Good. Now, explain to me why do I have templars in my city fifteen years after the order was abolished. You must have been, what, seven, when the last templar snorted up his last doze of lyrium? Is someone still training you in secret? Come to think of it, why haven’t I seen any smiting from you lot?”

Jean bared his teeth in defiance, and Hawke sighed and reached for his knife.

“We’re not really templars,” Jean said quickly. “We got the armour from that crazy old man who used to collect them.”

“Names, please. What man, where?”

“I don’t know, some guy in Kirkwall, we didn’t ask his name. We got word he had lots of good stuff in his basement, but there was mostly just templar armour. So then we had this idea…”

“What idea, to cleanse this place? But if you’re not even templars - ah, right. The vault. You’re just robbers, aren’t you?”

“It’s not right, what happened to the templars,” Jean said, suddenly solemn. “The mages are a threat to us all. They’re mixing with us and polluting our blood. There will be none of us normal people left if this is allowed to continue. They’ll rule over us, like in Tevinter. The templars knew that. They were protecting us.”

Hawke could rant on that topic for days. But in the end, here was the truth: there was now a whole generation that didn’t remember what things were like in the olden days, even for the ones who had no mages in their families. What Kirkwall was like for the last three years of Meredith’s rule. What happened when the templars broke the accords and set out to eliminate the mages and their sympathisers wherever they found them. What the templars were like when they ran out of lyrium.

Hawke had made his peace with the former templars a long time ago, even though that was a long and winding road that involved punching at least one Knight-Captain in the face and scarring the poor sod for life. A lot of them were victims too, orphanage brats forced into it, made addicts, brainwashed until they didn’t see “the robes” as people any more.

These young ones, though, they grew up during peacetime, in a kind of prosperity Ferelden and the Free Marches hadn’t known since before the Blight. They took for granted everything their parents’ generation had fought for. For reasons Hawke couldn’t begin to understand, these boys have built up new romantic ideas of what the templars had been like. The helmets weren’t just a convenient disguise for robbing the empty College, Hawke could see it now. These boys were proud to wear them. They thought themselves Champions of the Just.

He suddenly felt very tired, old and defeated, but this was not a time to feel sorry for himself.

“Why all the theatrics, why not just empty the vault in the middle of the night and run?” he asked.

“Because if we have the kids as hostages we can take everything,” Jean said. He seemed encouraged - probably, since Hawke didn’t reply to his speech about the templars, he assumed he’d won the old man over. “Not just whatever we can stuff in our bags. The books upstairs are priceless. The city will give us those carts and horses, they’ll cave in, I know it. We can load up half the library in those. And nobody will chase us. We’ll ride away, and then we’ll disappear. Nobody would have seen our faces. Look, your husband locked himself in there with all the children, he wouldn’t open. We’re going to set fire to the doors and smoke them out. If he keeps on being stubborn, children might die. He might die. Now, if you convince him to let us in, nobody will get hurt. You’ll both come with us, to keep the children from freaking out. And when we’re clear, we’ll let you go and give you a share. Now with five of us dead, you can have half of what was to go to them. You’ll still be a hero, as far as everyone in this shit city knows. And you’ll be a very rich man.”

“Hang on,” Hawke said. “Wouldn’t it take a while to fence all this? The books and the trinkets from the vault are all highly specific, very traceable items. To get the right price you need the right buyer. How are you going to cut me my share before you even sell anything?”

“No, that’s the best part, we already have a buyer! For the artifacts, and the books, and the kids…”

“The kids?”

“Only the elf ones,” Jean said. “We were going to let the human ones go.”

Hawke sighed, grabbed him by the neck, hauled him toward the window and swung him out.

“Hawke!” yelled the Captain of the City guard at the sight of him. Now every guard from the barracks seemed to be here, including the off-duty shift, lined up and in a middle of some kind of tactical briefing. “That better not be a hostage!”

“Why would it be? This is the ringleader of the gang!” Hawke helpfully explained, dangling his wheezing captive over the courtyard stones. “He has information about slavers in the area! Get a blanket or something, my arm’s getting tired!”

“Hawke, we talked about this!” the Captain screamed mournfully. He pulled off his own cloak and instructed the guard to stretch it under the window.

Hawke let go and watched Jean plunge down with a howl. He bounced off the spread cloak and fell onto the stones, and screamed when the guards attempted to pull him up.

“Hopefully broke another bone,” Hawke muttered and gave the guards a thumbs-up. “The door is open, by the way! Come in!”

“Hawke, please stay put, just don’t do anything,” the Captain started, and Hawke shut the window and limped to the stairs. Anders and the children were still safe, if Jean was to be believed, but he couldn’t wait any longer.

He ran up the stairs to the library floor. Jean hadn’t lied: there really were just four fake tempars left there on the landing. Two were facing the stairs with their swords drawn, waiting for Jean to walk Hawke into the ambush, hopefully already with a knife in his back. Two others crouched by the massive oak doors that led to the library proper. The door was splattered with oil, and small blue flames already danced up those dark patches, not hot enough yet to eat into the old wood, but moments from it.

“I’ll give you one chance to surrender,” Hawke managed before they all rushed him.

He’d wanted to fight them. For all the fear and helplessness they’d made him feel, for all the memories they’d dredged up. For Anders, for the children. But even as he dodged the first attack he already knew that fighting four swordsmen alone was a stupid idea. It would have been even fifteen years ago, when he’d been young, fit and sharp from regular skirmishes, but it was spectacularly unwise now.

“Should have waited for the guard,” he sighed to himself as his arms screamed in pain from parrying the sword blows, as his knees loudly popped whenever he rolled under a sword swing. “Should have waited.”

In the end he only took a few glancing hits, shallow wounds Anders would fix in one breath, and only once slipped on the blood still gushing from his foot. Luckily, falling spared him from a stab he wouldn’t have been fast enough to side-step. After he felled the last robber Hawke smothered the fire with the stolen templar skirts and slumped by the singed door to catch his breath.

With his ear to the door he could just hear Anders’ voice, steady and clear. He was entertaining the kids, keeping them calm.

“And then they all attacked me and stabbed me right through the heart!” Anders said, eliciting a few gasps from his audience. “But Justice, my good spirit friend who lives inside me, always comes to my aid in times of trouble. He popped out, healed my wound, defeated all the templars and ate them.”

“Gross!” laughed a few children.

“Right? Spirits are not like us, you know, he didn’t see anything wrong with that. He knows better now. But he’ll still always protect me and all my friends and students. So don’t worry. You’re always safe with me.”

“Justice will save us from the bad men?” asked a child that sounded about as young as Bethany’s latest masterpiece, five-year-old Malcolm.

“Even better, this time my husband will save us! The bravest and most handsome man in all the Thedas! He’s so charming and gorgeous, and there’s no better fighter. These cowards are no match for him.”

Hawke smiled to himself and knocked on the door.

“Babe,” he called. “It’s me, it’s safe to open. Bit messy here, though.”

He heard Anders’ footsteps approach, the bolts inside slide free, and then the door opened and he saw his love again, smiling, safe and unharmed.

He stepped through and shut the door, leaving the corpses behind.

“Let the guards clean up before the kids come out,” he said and drew Anders into his arms.

They kissed, and it felt just like that first time almost two decades ago: everything else fading away, Anders clinging to him with his whole body, making desperate noises against his mouth.

“You’re safe,” Hawke said afterwards, gasping a little for breath, and stroked Anders’ fair hair, traced the familiar silver streaks in it with his fingers. “I know you probably could have dealt with them by yourself--”

“Yes, but I was worried about the kids. You remember how Justice can be around the templars. I knew they’d be no trouble for you.”

“They weren’t even real templars. Just stupid brats playing at a heist.”

“Good,” Anders said and kissed him again, and Hawke melted into it, forgetting all about his injuries. “It did unsettle me a little, seeing them again. But I knew there had to be a simple explanation. It’s all over, it can’t happen again. It never will.”

“Never,” said Hawke, as if swearing a vow, and Anders led him inside the library, closer to the windows, where the children were waiting, quiet and worried.

“Who wants to see spirit healing of a real life wound?” Anders asked, and all the kids threw their hands up and clumped around them to watch as Anders healed Hawke’s foot, the cuts on his arms and ribs.

“Is he really the handsomest man?” Hawke noticed one teenage girl whisper to her friends sceptically, but he ignored it.

Afterwards Anders channelled Panacea to heal Hawke’s tired muscles and strained joints, cuddled Hawke to his side and told the kids about their wedding and their top three most romantic dates. The Guard Captain popped inside the library and gave Hawke a well-worn speech, chiding him for interference with the proper protocols. Hawke nodded along and, as usual, promised it wouldn’t happen again.

After the corpses were removed and the blood was mopped up they finally left the library, and the kids instantly split up into little groups and dispersed through the building, desperate to run and play after hours of being cooped up and probably scared out of their minds despite their teacher’s best efforts.

“Can we go home?” Hawke begged. He couldn’t imagine leaving and letting Anders out of his sight again.

“You know I can’t leave the children. Especially now. They’ll need me.”

“They seem fine.”

“They’re relieved now. This will wear off by supper, and there will be tears. You can stay here, though.”

He gave Hawke his beautiful, warm smile, the same one that had dazzled Hawke all those years ago. The smiles revealed more lines at his eyes now, but that only made them more radiant.

“After we tuck the children in,” he said. “I’ll take you to my room and give you your Satinalia present. And your reward for rescuing me today.”

“Are they the same thing?” Hawke asked hopefully. “Twice?”

“It’s a surprise,” Anders smiled and gave Hawke’s butt a loving squeeze. “You’ll have to wait and see.”


End file.
